Lenovo ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 review: failing to stand out

If you’re going to make a 13-inch laptop today, you’ll want to ensure it’s fast, has great battery life, and equips an excellent display. That’s particularly true if you’re asking premium dollars, as Lenovo is with the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4.

With competition from a new class of Microsoft Copilot+ PCs, that’s become even more vital. Those laptops are fast, have great battery life, and are even a bit less expensive. All things considered, the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 isn’t a very strong alternative.

Specs and configurations

The ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 has one of the stranger configurations that I can remember. Its base model costs $1,580 for an Intel Core Ultra 5 125H chipset, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 13.5-inch 2.8K IPS display (the only option). For $432 more, you can upgrade all the way to an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H, which is a curious alternative. The Core Ultra 9 185H is a much more power-hungry chipset that you won’t often find in a 13-inch laptop. If you choose the Core Ultra 9, you can also configure 32GB of RAM — also likely overkill for this class of machine. That will cost you $2,220 with a 1TB SSD.

The ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 isn’t an inexpensive laptop, but it’s competitively priced. The Intel-based Dell XPS 13 starts at $1,299 for a Core Ultra 7 155H, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a FHD+ (1920 by 1200) IPS display. As you start ramping up the XPS 13’s configuration, you’ll spend around the same money. The MacBook Air M3, though, starts at a much lower $1,099 for 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, and a 13.6-inch 2560-by-1664 IPS display, and it’s not quite as expensive at the high end unless you opt for a 2TB SSD.

Design

The ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 is a well-made little laptop. It’s all-aluminum and feels incredibly solid, with no bending, flexing or twisting in the lid, keyboard deck, or chassis. It’s easily the equal of the Dell XPS 13 and even slightly more rigid than the MacBook Air M3, which has a slightly bendable lid. It has a truly premium feel, and that extends to the hinge that allows smoothly opening the lid with one hand.

The biggest advantage of a 13-inch laptop is its portability, and here the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 also does well. It has extremely thin display bezels, maybe thinner than even the XPS 13, while having a larger display. It’s slightly narrower and only a tiny bit deeper, while being thinner at 0.51 inches versus 0.58 inches. The Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED is thinner at 0.46 inches, but it’s also wider and deeper even with a smaller display. The MacBook Air M3 is the thinnest of all at 0.44 inches, but it’s also larger with a slightly larger display and bezels. The Zenbook is lighter at 2.2 pounds, with the others coming in at around 2.7 pounds.

Lenovo also did a great job with the aesthetic. The overall color scheme is a dark gray, with a little splash of chrome in the logos on the lid. The keyboard is closely matched, giving everything a cohesive look. And then the lid is two-tone, which adds a bit of flair. It’s just enough to make the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 stand out a bit from its peers, but it’s not enough to be garish. The XPS 13 is more conservative on the outside while being ultramodern (and controversial) on the inside, and the MacBook Air M3 has Apple’s usual fastidious design that exudes excellence.

Keyboard and touchpad

The ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 has Lenovo’s latest non-ThinkPad keyboard, with sculpted keycaps that seem a bit smaller than I remember and with an impression of more spacing overall. The switches are light and snappy, and I found myself quickly getting up to speed. It’s a different feel than Apple’s Magic Keyboard, but I imagine many people will like it just as much. It’s easily more comfortable than the zero-lattice keyboard on the XPS 13.

My review unit had a mechanical keyboard that’s OK. It’s large enough and precise, but the button clicks are sharp and too loud. You can configure a haptic touchpad, which if it’s like the one on the Lenovo ThinkPad Z13, will be a lot more competitive with the haptic touchpads on some other recent premium laptops. It’s a free switch in Lenovo’s configurator, and I can think of no good reason to go with the mechanical version.

Connectivity, expandability, and webcam

Standard connectivity is quite limited, with just Thunderbolt 4 ports and no legacy connections. The primary advantage over the XPS 13 is that there’s one more Thunderbolt 4 port for charging. The MacBook Air M3 also has just two Thunderbolt 4 ports, but it also has the MagSafe 3 connection for charging.

The ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 is unusual in that it has Lenovo’s Magic Bay solution, which uses a set of pogo pins in the reverse notch that holds the webcam to add one of several accessories. Those include the Magic Bay Light (included with my review unit), Magic Bay LTE for 4G connectivity, Magic Bay 4K webcam, and Magic Bay Studio that adds speakers to a 4K webcam. I tested the Magic Bay Light and, when used with Lenovo’s Smart Meeting app, provided intense lighting that seems more than sufficient for any possible environment.

The Magic Bay expandability is an interesting feature for sure. The biggest problem is that it’s almost impossible to choose a specific Magic Bay accessory. You can’t buy them separately, but rather they’re included with specific models. However, you can’t currently select a model when configuring the machine. So, it would take a lot of work to actually buy the ThinkBook with a specific accessory. Lenovo needs to fix that.

The integrated webcam is a 1080p version with an infrared camera for Windows 11 Hello facial recognition. The Intel Meteor Lake chipset includes a neural processing unit (NPU) that’s not fast enough for Microsoft’s new Copilot+ features but does support the standard Microsoft Studio Effects. That utility adds AI hardware assist for things like background blurring.

Performance

In a strange twist, Lenovo is offering two chipsets for the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4. My review unit came with the 28-watt Intel Core Ultra 5 125H with 14 cores (four Performance, eight Efficient, and two Low Power Efficient) and 18 threads, running at up to 4.5GHz. That’s less common than the Core Ultra 7 155H with two extra cores and threads, but not a bad choice for a 13-inch laptop.

The other option, though, is the 45-watt Core Ultra 9 185H with 16 cores (six Performance, eight Efficient, and two Low Power Efficient) and 22 cores running at up to 5.1GHz. That chipset requires a lot more power to run at full performance, and it gets hotter. It’s a questionable choice for a 13-inch laptop.

Simply put, most people are going to buy the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 primarily for productivity tasks. For these users, the laptop was a decent performer in our benchmarks but it lagged behind several other 13-inch machines in most of our benchmarks. Interestingly, it did much better in the PCMark 10 Complete benchmark that runs through a more real-world workflow. It wasn’t impressive in 3DMark, so gaming isn’t really an option here.

Overall, if you’re looking for a laptop that will be fast enough for web browsing, email, office apps, and media consumption, then ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 will be a great option. If your needs are more demanding, however, you might find it a bit limiting. Upgrading to the Core Ultra 9 185H is a dubious proposition in that it might not provide that much more performance but will certainly run hotter and louder.

Battery life

The ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 has a rather large battery for a 13-inch laptop, at 74 watt-hours. By comparison, the XPS 13 has just 55 watt-hours and the MacBook Air M3 52.6 watt-hours. The ThinkBook also has a 2.8K IPS display that should burn less power than an OLED panel, but won’t be as efficient as the FHD+ panels you’ll find in some alternatives.

In our benchmarks, the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 wasn’t terribly impressive. It lasted for just 6.25 hours in our web browsing test and 12.3 hours in our video looping test. The XPS 13 with an IPS display made it to 14 hours of web browsing, and the MacBook Air M3 with a high-res IPS panel lasted for 19 hours of both web browsing and video.

With the advent of Microsoft’s new Copilot+ PC initiative with Windows on Arm laptops running Qualcomm’s very efficient Snapdragon X Elite chipsets, laptops like the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 are even less impressive. Especially for typical productivity workflows, the Qualcomm machines will offer hours more battery life. And the MacBook Air M3 retains its spot at the top.

Display and audio

Most premium laptops today offer an OLED display option, but the ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 bucks that trend. It has one panel, a 2.8K (2880 by 1800) IPS running at 120Hz. Given the laptop’s longevity, that’s not a bad compromise. An OLED display would get even worse battery life. Subjectivity, the display was plenty sharp and very bright, and it has accurate colors and enough contrast to be great for productivity work.

My colorimeter measured brightness at 563 nits, which is excellent. Contrast came in at 1,340:1, which is very good for IPS (but well under a display like the XPS 13 OLED at 16,500:1). Color accuracy was excellent at a Delta-E of 0.90 (less than 1.0 is indistinguishable to the human eye). The only glaring weakness, at least compared to OLED, was color gamut support at 99% of sRGB, 73% of AdobeRGB, and 73% of DCI-P3. Those are average for IPS, although many competing laptops are better, and well under the 100%, 95%, and 100%, respectively, that OLED usually produces.

Once again, these are good enough results for a productivity user, but creators and media consumers won’t love this display.

Audio duties are performed by four speakers: two tweeters and two woofers. The system was loud enough and very clear, with good mids, highs, and even some bass. I’d rate audio as very good and better than that on the XPS 13 and MacBook Air M3.

A 13-inch laptop that fails to stand out

The ThinkBook 13x Gen 4 ticks some of the important boxes. It’s very well-built, attractive, and has a great keyboard with an optional haptic touchpad. It’s highly portable, and its Magic Bay setup is unique.

But it’s not terribly fast, it doesn’t have great battery life, and its display is good but not great. If it were less expensive, then it would be easier to recommend. But if you’re spending more than $1,500 for a laptop, you shouldn’t have to accept so many compromises.